Previously I said Ed would not be able to produce the four sets of numbers supposedly supplied from County, the first three of which showed LAAS ahead of County, until a fourth set was received with an extra 6,000 animals placed. Boks supposedly "quickly dismissed" these numbers as having no basis in fact.
Marcia Mayeda says there was no correspondence. Boks now says there was no correspondence, just County numbers from an unidentified County employee over the phone.
How convenient. Four sets of numbers over three years? Mayeda gave three years of numbers and County came out ahead in each.
Thiis LAAS's reply to Brad Jensen's request for records:
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A response was received by LA City on Friday, September 21, 2007. Whether your announcement that LA County had responded to your request the day before had anything to do with it is up for interpretation.The City responds by saying there is no written correspondence between City and County Animal Services regarding this issue; however the City had several phone conversations with the custodian of records on staff at County.
So apparently, neither agency is going to give up any documented proof that four sets of adoption numbers were ever provided to the City without someone specifically asking for what may or may not exist. Could be just some numbers scribbled on a sticky note for all anyone knows.
So... Lacking any credible documentation to substantiate the City's claim that four sets of increasing adoption numbers were provided by County I feel the City's claims should be dismissed as quickly as Boks has dismissed County claims they place more animals than City.
-Brad Jensen
The next step is to identify the County's Custodian of Records for Animal Services to hear his denial of any such conversations. As you will note, Boks did not identify the mysterious employee who is the Custodian since Bollinger left.
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Text in blue is NOT the LAAS response. These are only my thoughts on the Department's reply. The actual LAAS response is posted in the comments section here.
ReplyDeleteBrad Jensen
Cypress,CA
Two Public Records Act requests were emailed to LAAS (To: Ed Boks, Linda Barth and Ross Pool) on September 26, 2007. These requests were not responded to or even acknowledged within 10 calendar days as required by State Law. So, follow-up emails were sent on October 19, 2007 (23 days later).
ReplyDeleteLinda Barth, Assistant General Manager for LAAS responded that afternoon but ONLY to the PRA concerning the 4 sets of increasing adoption numbers provided by LA County. Dov Lesel, Ed Boks and Ross Pool were copied on that email. The other PRA request has yet to be acknowledged. (NOTE: If local government ignores and/or fails to properly respond to requests for information as required by State Law, one might wonder what other State Laws are being ignored).
Rather than re-phrase what Linda Barth had to say, I will simply copy and paste her response below.
*** Begin LAAS Response ***
LAAS staff called LA County's custodian of records line on 8/8. The person at that office reported that the LA County's total dog and cat adoptions, including their 501 (c) adoption partners was 21, 075 for FY 06/07 (14,969 dogs and 6,106 cats). Later that day, LAAS staff called LA County back to request their total adoption numbers, including "other." The same County staff person reported that their "other" adoptions totaled 861, bringing the total adoption numbers for dogs, cats, and others to 21,936 for FY 06/07. The next day (8/9), the County staff person called back to say that the numbers were from the wrong report, and the previously reported figures were actually from the fiscal year FY 05/06. She gave the updated numbers for FY 06/07 of 22,290 total adoptions (15,524 Dogs, 5,743 Cats, and 1,023 Other).
A different number was given in the County's press release after the City's event.
*** End LAAS Response ***
Maybe its smoke in my eyes from the fires but I'm counting only 3 sets of adoption numbers provided by County… not four. The increasing adoption numbers were a result of LAAS calling back and asking for additional information and then County realizing they had made a mistake and provided numbers from an earlier report period.
Yes, I agree with Linda that a different number was given in the County's press release but this is because that number reflected animals placed, not just adopted. The difference between “placed” and “adopted” has already been looked at in the following article...
It depends on what the meaning of 'IS' is.
http://www.sheltertrak.com/news_002.php
I haven't run record totals for the fiscal year numbers quoted above and don’t even have all the animal records needed from County to close out FY07 but the totals I'm seeing for calendar year 2006 and the 12 months ending April 2007 are close enough to convince me that the numbers provided by LA County are reasonable.
Regardless, Linda Barth's explanation seems to make a lot more sense than what Ed Boks was blogging to us about.
Brad Jensen
Cypress, CA
http://www.sheltertrak.com